[ThePortuguee]

Fold preflop. You're holding 75o, save the dollar and buy a soda, rather than paying a dollar to see a flop then potentially wasting more money if you flop top or second pair and get out kicked, or just dont believe your opponet and get shown 88, TT, or even something bigger from a weak player trying to keep you in the hand. So you should fold preflop.

BUT, okay, you want to look your opponet up the first hand you sit down, you're willign to commit a few BB to see how he plays, fine. You should still fold preflop, but you're there, okay, you see what happens.

Once you're there, though, I don't hate the way you played the hand. When the flop paired you, the raise is probably right. For those who disagree, I'm going to point out that while the sb could be raising an overpair, he could just as easily made a steal raise in a folded pot with a couple cards above a ten, AK, AJ, KJ, even TQ or TJs. His min-bet is half the pot, so I'm not giong to write him off as a total idiot yet, but it smells like an overpair trying not to scare you if the flop, say, paired your sevens.

So why raise? Well, because you're usually going to get overcard hands like QJ, KQ, and AJ to back off on the turn, in which case you might get to show down your pair of sevens cheap and win the pot. You're usually not going to improve on the turn so if you can induce a check from overcards in position you can check behind and then either call a bet on the river hoping you induced a bluff, or check behind on the river and show down third pair for what might be the best hand. You cant really bet the river because you wont get called by anything that doesnt beat you.

So the raise on the flop is fine, when he calls, you impvoe, then he minbets again, I think you're about to get paid off by an overpair. At this point he probably thinks you have a nine and isnt afraid of the sevens fro that reason, not because he can beat three sevens. In terms of the raise on the end, I might be a little careful with the size of that raise, because if he happened to have KK (though unlikely), you're giong to get popped for all your chips and you're goign to have to call.

In so far as the comment that suggests you're up against a boat, I doubt it. I guess he could have nines full but if he's even semi-conscious he'll either reraise the flop, bet stronger on the turn, or reraise the turn. It's hard to believe he'd min-bluff-raise preflop with 79 because he has to think he's going to get called. His minraise is probably a big hand, wants to keep action raise, not trying to push you off your blind.

It's worthy of pointing out here that a lot of weak players who play a lot of poker have taken bad beats against their big hands and so they have begun to play them passively when they dont improve on the flop. He probably has AK or QQ down through TT in this hand. He likes it, doesnt feel like he can get away with it, but he's afraid of it because he's had a history of losing to hands like oh, say, 75o, from people who call raises preflop with it. Did I mention you should have folded to begin with preflop?